Food Storage Origins

Sometimes taking a look at the past will help to guide us for the future. Civilizations have been gathering food to store since the beginning of time. Thousands of years ago, if you didn’t hunt and find food, you didn’t survive. Indigenous people foraged for food and were able to use what they had to preserve the food for as long as they could, so that they would always have something to eat. They couldn’t simply build a food storage the way that we can today. Because they were required to live off the land, they did what they could to store food for long periods of time.

Drying food was probably the first food preservation method used . People have been drying food using solar rays since about 12,000 BC. In some regions, the sun was too weak to dry food. A solution was found by using small huts that were built capable of having a fire inside, which was used to dry any food placed in them.

Freezing food was a common practice in regions cold enough to allow it. Meat and other food could be placed in caves or cold water streams to keep temperatures down. Some regions only experienced freezing temperatures in the winter months, but food was kept frozen during that time since produce could not be grown, and meat was hard to come by. Freezers were not invented until the 1800’s, so people used cold outdoor temperatures for thousands of years, and only recently do we have the luxury of in home refrigeration and freezing.

Fermenting and pickling food have been practiced since about 10,000 BC. Ketchup and many other sauces that we have today originated from the salty pickling brines.

Dehydration was implemented in the 1800s, when people realized that adding salt to some meats would help it to last longer at room temperature. Canning was also developed around that time, when people discovered that heating wine to kill bacteria could also be applied to other foods.

It may surprise you to hear that freeze-drying has also been around for a long time. The ancient Peruvian Incas used freeze-drying to preserve their potatoes. The Incas stored their crops on the mountain tops of Machu Picchu. Freezing temperatures froze the food on the mountain, and as the water inside vaporized under the low air pressure of the high altitudes, the first freeze-dried foods were created.

There are plenty of methods used today for the preservation of food. As a human culture, we have always been interested in preserving our food, and preparing for the future. With the ease of putting together a food storage supply today, it’s a wonder that more people aren’t taking the steps needed to be prepared.

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